The Trojan Horse Wore Hightops Ch. 03

Finally, the sex died down, with both of them and the entire house a mess. A new chapter page announced "THREE WEEKS LATER."

The first panel was a close-up on a pregnancy test. Blank, and in the next panel, positive. She confronted Jenny. "What do we do?"

"You have my baby," Jenny's eyes had literal flames drawn in them and her grin was devilish. "I have a test too." She handed her something.

She turned the page, which showed the results up close:

DNA Test

Father: SATAN

Mother: Beverley Allen

The next panel of Bev's jaw dropping inspired Kim to do the same. She turned to the next one.

"I'm the daughter you abandoned, MOM! You left me in a dumpster to die after you cheated on your husband. You just can't resist a huge cock and now you're carrying my baby!"

"Jenny... I..."

Jenny ran across the room and moved a plant, revealing a hidden camera.

"And you're going to have that baby or else this video is going public!" She ran to reveal another camera. Then another. Somehow, Jenny had transformed the house into some kind of film studio. "This video of you fucking your daughter!"

"Sunnie, this is..." Kim was pale. She looked at the wine again but her stomach said no. She turned to the next page.

"NINE MONTHS LATER."

Bev was in the hospital, giving birth. In the next panel, tentacles spawned out from between her legs. She started to skip panels now. It was too much. With Bev holding a half-octopus, half-human baby, the news at the hospital came on, announcing "`WORST MOTHER IN THE WORLD HAS SEX WITH DAUGHTER. VIDEO EVIDENCE!"

Jenny walked into the hospital room with a wicked smile. She had goat horns. None of it made sense anymore. Jenny was supposed to be a demon now? "You're going to jail, Mom. Unless you come with me and be my sex slave, forever!"

The final page was a red-skinned, demonic and erect Jenny sitting on a throne with her collared mother kneeling at her feet and giving her oral sex. They were sitting in hell.

"THE END."

Kim closed the book and pushed it aside. Kids and their fantasies, she tried to tell herself. This was worse. Dangerous. Personal. What made Sunnie write something like this?

Sunnie Bono.

The fraudulent name wasn't so cute now.

She stood and turned the backpack upside down. It didn't matter if Sunnie knew she had looked through her things because they were definitely going to talk about this. She did the same with her fanny pack, sorting it all on her desk, noticing the weight of a folding knife falling among her things. She emptied the jacket pockets into the pile, fingers finding the familiar plastic of a pharmacy bottle which immediately took her attention.

The prescription was for one ROGER CUNNINGHAM from a pharmacy somewhere in Indiana. Once full of Viagra, a shake confirmed it was empty. She put it down next to the comic, running out of desk space.

With an annoyed sigh, she moved the vibrator aside. She'd clean up later.

There were clothes as expected: a couple of tee shirts, a bra that probably wasn't big enough and three pairs of boxer briefs, one with the tag still on. Had she stolen them? There was a well-used pencil pouch with art supplies which made enough sense, a bundle of cash in fives and tens and a toiletry bag, also with the store tag. It's clear pockets showed a fresh tube of toothpaste,and full, small bottles of shampoo and body wash.

There wasn't much else interesting except for a manila envelope, a greyhound ticket and her wallet. She went for the wallet first.

"Okay, Sunnie Bono. What's your real name?"

The ID was one she didn't recognize at first. Not a driver's license. "Texas Department of Corrections" read across the top. Sunnie had been to prison.

Kim sighed, long and deflating. "Don't you dare ruin this."

But her name wasn't Sunnie.

"John McKenzie. Age: 19. Sex: F."

The prison ID was a surprise, but her name and sex weren't. Sunnie made sense as a nickname, when her birth name was John and she looked like she did. Her sex, she had wondered about, but it hadn't mattered and every part of her felt completely natural.

She had some idea what was possible and what wasn't with surgery, thanks to her ex-husband, but she also knew the Texas penal system was likely operating under a very outdated concept of gender identity.

When would Sunnie have brought up that she had a criminal record? Why would she? They were easy to get in Texas, Kim assured herself. Drunk driving was common enough that defense attorneys seemed to have every other billboard along the highway. Maybe she'd been a protestor of some kind? Young people were so political these days. All kinds of mischief could lead to time in prison. Of course, so could much more serious crimes.

Kim set aside the wallet then grabbed the manila envelope and bent back its metal tabs. It had some bulk, shaped like standard office paper, and she slipped the contents out on the desk, clearing some space.

The top of the stack appeared to be the prison release papers. At least she wasn't an escaped convict! The papers weren't easy to read but she gathered Sunnie had been transferred from a Juvenile Women's Prison at age 18 to an Adult Facility. How bad could it be?

"Aggravated Sexual Assault, 2016."

Rape? Could that be statutory in Texas? She would have been 14, according to the ID. But why would that put her in the system? She'd heard of minors getting rape charges for having sex with their boyfriends or girlfriends while both minors.

The Texas penal system had a reputation for erring on the cruel side, but whatever Sunnie had done was considered bad enough to continue her sentence into adulthood, for a year and half more in a Women's Correctional Facility.

Kim flipped back to the first page of the report. Sunnie had been out for less than a month. None of this was making her feel any better about inviting her in or considering letting her stay. She slid the prison papers aside, to the next batch and leaned in for a closer look.

The next few pages were printouts from a Texas Library.

She had printed out a map after her release from prison, to somewhere called "Saint Mary's Residential Treatment Center."

Another page was a printout from a Digital Private Investigator website, boasting "FIND ANYONE!" across the top banner. She had searched for a "Beth Hammond", with tens of pages on possible relations, addresses and employment, which included Saint Mary's.

There were so many pages, it wasn't clear where it ended, and she nearly missed where the next one began. She flipped back and found the first page of the next report.

Something was wrong.

Her stomach started spinning like a hurricane while the saliva of her mouth turned to dust.

The name "Walter Carlyle."

Aka Walt.

Walt Carlyle. Kim's father.

Her knees went jelly-like and weak. Kim braced herself on the desk with both arms, doing her best to stay upright. The fine, light hair along them stood up, over a new sheen of cold sweat that she felt on her bare skin and under her clothes. She was damp and cold in an instant. Eyes ripped away from the papers long enough to scan her office, considering which appliance, supply or bric-a-brac would be suitable for defending herself. She remembered a heavy flashlight in one of the desk drawers and grabbed it, setting it within reach.

Breathe, Kim.

She took a moment to collect herself and listen. The house was built cheaply enough that she could hear when David would wake up after her. She heard nothing and her racing heartbeat slowed to a more reasonable level of panic.

There were more pages still but her eyes were having trouble focusing. She closed them for a long moment, then scanned for addresses.

"Oh... my God."

She didn't have to recognize one so much as it jumped out at her. Kim's childhood home in Texas. On the next page, the "Possible Relations" heading listed her own name, both maiden and married, and her ex-husband's name, then her father's second and third wife over her own late Mother.

"Why was she looking for Dad?"

Her body was resisting going any further. Her hands could hardly hold the papers still enough to read. She wanted to throw them down and run out of the room. Or the house. Nothing good could follow this, but she had to know. She flipped to the start of the next search.

It was her, with her married name:

Kimberley Weber.

"No. Nonononono."

She hunched over and pushed past clumps of pages at a time now, making more of a mess of her desk. After the search pages, there were printouts of hers and David's public Facebook pages. She didn't use hers much but there were pictures, it turned out.

The next few pages were stiffer. Photo paper. Pictures of her that she or David uploaded years ago. The last of them, she remembered but was sure she had deleted. Someone else had shared it and tagged her. It was the only one where she didn't have her body as covered as she could have. A pool party, years ago when David was still in med school and someone had gotten a picture of her in a one-piece swimsuit.

He had twisted her arm that they should swim at the party, only for her to feel predictably objectified by the other guests. The Deer-in-headlights look on her face in the picture came right before she chastised the photographer and demanded it be deleted. She had asked for the photo to be removed and untagged herself, but there it was, zoomed in to just her, with the rest cropped out.

Droplets of something had been spilled or splattered on the photo paper, long dried. She pushed it aside.

The next page wasn't a printout but a photocopy. A birth certificate from the State of Texas. She covered her mouth.

Baby Boy Carlyle.

Birthday: May 12, 2002.

A date she would never forget: the day her father forced her to give up her and John's child. This was someone else's. Birth certificates weren't ID.

Still clutching her face but now cold with sweat, she looked around her now messy desk, moving things until she found the Inmate ID card and the birthday printed on it.

May 12, 2002.

The tingling, antithesis of euphoria held her in disbelief. The feeling between her stomach and throat announced impending vomit. She was out of possible excuses, but she didn't know for one-hundred percent sure. There could still be an explanation, couldn't there be? No. Every piece made sense. The papers. The ID. The whole revenge fantasy. It was sure.

Sunnie was her son.

To Be Concluded